Yes on waste plan; They’re as American as you and I; Sex trafficking is a big issue; Texas patriots: Illegal immigrants?

Yes on waste plan

After years of planning and public input, Fort Worth is scheduled to approve a 20-year solid waste plan on Tuesday night. The plan has come a long way, and it finally includes some ambitious objectives and innovative solutions to what-in-the-heck we do with all this stuff we consume.

In fact, just over one million cubic feet of stuff goes to our landfill each year. In football terms, that’s about 170 feet high from end zone to end zone. A consultant on solid waste tells us we’ll need a brand new landfill in 20 years or less, at this rate.

That’s why this upcoming solid waste plan is so important. The plan outlines specific strategies and objectives that will keep up to 60 percent of the valuable materials from being dumped in the landfill. For example, a Fort Worth study in 2014 found that at least 30 percent of residential trash is food waste. There’s no reason we can’t start capturing and composting those stale groceries and banana peels today.

We urge Fort Worth City Council and the Mayor to vote YES on the solid waste plan on Tuesday. Let’s put an end to wasting, because no one wants to volunteer their backyard for the next dump.

They’re as American as you and I

Do DACA opponents realize that these young adults they want to deport are as American as you or I?

They are totally assimilated into our way of life. How can you be OK with throwing them out to a country and culture that they have never known? That is a special kind of cruel.

Sex trafficking a big issue

Thank you to Jeff Redding for raising some important questions about human trafficking (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 6).

Unfortunately, sex trafficking is a significant issue. A study released by the University of Texas concluded that almost 79,000 minors and youth are victims of sex trafficking in Texas. It also found that minor and youth sex trafficking costs Texas about $6.5 billion.

Many victims are lured into trafficking by someone they know, or at least think they know. Traffickers have an uncanny ability to select youth with unmet needs and prey on their vulnerabilities.

According to The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 1 in 6 of the 18,500 runaways reported to them in 2016 were likely sex trafficking victims. Eighty-six percent were in the care of social services or foster care when they disappeared. Supporting families and children in state care would be a great way to reduce the incidence of trafficking.

Texas patriots: Illegal immigrants?

A reader wrote: “If an immigrant has not received legal resident status or citizenship…he or she is here illegally. …he or she is subject to deportation. What part of that concept is too difficult to understand?”

Texas was once part of Mexico, which banned immigration from the U.S. in 1830. William B. Travis, Davy Crockett and many others ignored the law and came anyway.

So according to the reader’s definition, many of Texas’ “founding fathers” were illegal immigrants.

Taking his concept one step further, I suppose when they took up arms against Mexico they became “enemy combatants”?

I would be happy to have a simple immigration policy, but “simple is, as simple does,” my grandmother once told me. I did not think she was rendering me a compliment.

This story was originally published September 11, 2017 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Yes on waste plan; They’re as American as you and I; Sex trafficking is a big issue; Texas patriots: Illegal immigrants?."